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“We as teams are the major players in all this, because we are the ones who are doing the performance and who are the basis creating, may it be a fantastic sport or may it be on the commercial side, the income. We all should really know together – with the other key stakeholders – where do we stand now.”

Maria de Villota appeared in Spain’s Hola magazine, looking substantially recovered following her dreadful crash while testing for Marussia in July. She told the magazine she isn’t sure if she’ll return to racing.

“At Monza for example, we had a car that was good enough to take pole, while then at Singapore, we got a bit lost and to a certain extent, we also suffered at Suzuka, even if there, Felipe showed he was pretty competitive in the race: if we weren?óÔé¼Ôäót as quick as the Red Bulls, we were at least a match for all the others.”

“I will always think of September 25, 1988 in Estoril as the day everything began to change. Ayrton Senna led the first lap of the Portuguese Grand Prix, but at the end of it his McLaren team-mate Alain Prost pulled out to pass him ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ and as he did so, Senna swerved right, moving Prost dangerously close to the pit wall. Alain didn?óÔé¼Ôäót lift, and went on to win the race, but afterwards he confessed that he had been shaken by Ayrton?óÔé¼Ôäós move. So were all who witnessed it ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ and why? Because we had never seen the like of it before.”

“The teams’ advance parties arrived to set up the garages [in 2011] and do the unpacking only to find, once the gates had been opened, what looked like a holiday camp that had been closed for the winter. Or abandoned, more like. Tufts of grass and weeds sprouted in the paddock, an infinitely more agreeable sight than kitchens containing left-overs from race day lunch in 2010.”

Mark Hughes: “The fact that Red Bull has researched and developed such an aerodynamically complex system that can be used only for the last seven races of the season is a little tell-tale that Red Bull believes this title to be winnable. Lotus, on the other hand, appears to be thinking more about 2013.”

“We’re informed that Jenson bought his Ferrari Enzo in the same year he won his world championship, which is a fair treat considering that at the end of 2008, he didn’t even know if he had a job at all, before announcing a drive in a car many weren’t expecting to come good. But boy, did it come good.”

Comment of the day

They should go back into WEC. It?óÔé¼Ôäós ripe for the taking. If you do it right, like Audi, you can get much more brand burnish-ment for far less money. And even if you don?óÔé¼Ôäót succeed, you don’t have the spectre of your cars running around in the back of a 24-plus car field, getting lapped by rival brands.DaveW (@dmw)

40 comments on Sauber want clarity over future F1 deal

Nice to see an opposing view to the now halo-shined reputation of Senna. In many ways he was the conduit which allowed some fairly reprehensible tactics to come into the sport (or as the article points out, back into the sport). Because of him, we now have Maldonado, who ignored yellow flags and injured a marshall continuing to barge around racetracks, we have a Grosjean who demonstrated by example first time around, and now admits publicly that he doesn’t have the spare mental capacity to drive safely in traffic, or Canamassas deliberately ignoring black flags.
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All too often I have heard the excuse “…yes, but he’s fast, and you can polish the rough edges off a fast driver, but you can’t teach someone to be fast.”

That’s all meaningless when a marshall gets hit, or a competitor gets injured by an ignoramus who believes breaking the sporting rules is ok if it gives you a better chance of getting a result.

Grosjean deserved more than a one-race ban. Canamassas should have been banned for next season. Maldonado shouldn’t be racing in any category. Yet here they are, learning little or nothing, and the result is that the borderline behaviour of Senna, the outright wrong behaviour of Schumacher, and the reprehensible conduct of some drivers will continue, because the small beans punishments mean that breaking the rules is worth it.

Prove to the paddock that you’re “fast but a bit dodgy” and you’ll go far.

I say, spare the rod and spoil the child. Some of these children need a bigger rod, frankly. And at least 2 of them should never drive again.

Maldonado shouldnât be racing in any category. Yet here they are, learning little or nothing

To be fair, Maldonado has had two-and-a-half clean races (his retirement in Singapore was not his fault), and while that might not be much, it’s definately a step in the right direction. Romain Grosjean is the more reckless, more dangerous driver at the moment – and he arguably always has been, but people have been willing to overlook it because of his results.

Nigel roebuck as a human being has many bias as we all do so i wouldn’t take his word as gospel as i wouldn’t any f1 journo, If you insist on commenting on his article though at least recognise that senna was not the first driver to block a competitor. Nor can he or anyone be held responsible for the likes of maldonado and grosjean only they are responsible for their actions as only you are for your own.

Every single champion certainly during and since the 80’s has blocked at one time or another jones piquet hunt lauda prost mansell msc hil jv hakkinen etc they have all done it many of them before senna was even in f1. Frankly f1 would be boring if they didn’t because it wouldn’t be a fight, if you’re a purist who dislikes DRS (not saying you are but if you are). Then you would surely find a f1 that outlawed defending just as artificial as an f1 with a device for dropping drag on the car behind to increase the speed of and give an advantage to one car over another.

There’s a difference between blocking, defending your position, and putting another driver at risk. Driving hard is not the same as putting your competitor into a “move your car or we both crash” position.

Really? So senna crashed into prost on purpose and that means he’s responsible for maldonado being a foolish hot head and driving lewis off the road in spa? Does that mean if someone goes out and shoots a person they can say well world war one is responsible for my actions because 15 million people were killed and it happened in the past? ofc it doesn’t everyone makes their own decisions.

Whats more maldonado in spa is the only similarity to anything senna ever did it’s the only pre meditated incident since piquet jr’s crashgate. All of grosjeans and maldonados other accidents have not been “move your car or we both crash” moments. They are as martin brundle might put it “ran out of talent and road” situations which is their own problem not sennas.

I think it is unfair to put all the blame on Senna. Yes, he was agressive, but he is not the only one. Nigel Mansell was called ‘thick foot’ in his early years, or take Alain Jones he was merciless with his car or the others, Nelson Piquet too. And those are WDCs we are talking about, so there might be some point in that “excuse”. If you really want to blame someone, blame the drivers for the inability to learn and the governing body, or the stewarts not realising this.

Thatâs all meaningless when a marshall gets hit, or a competitor gets injured by an ignoramus who believes breaking the sporting rules is ok if it gives you a better chance of getting a result.

I agree. As any respectable society, F1 has evolved to a fairer system despite all our issues concerning stewards decisions. The center of any âjudicialâ system must be menâs integrity and nobody acting like Senna did at some events will go away unpunished. I defend that whoever imposes negative externalities on other must pay.

The appetite for the big F1 event is pretty minimal South Korea. The article cited above is several days old and the Korean Times has multiple US sports stories over past days and only 2 F1 stories in the past week.

The local authority promoting the race in the remote part of South Korea was promised huge external investment by Ecclestone once they signed a 7 year contract – so they committed to $700m of tax payers money, but none of the outside investment has happened

This has left F1 personnel scrabbling for hotels, which are few and far between and of a very poor quality. Today a number of them have tweeted and posted their problems and disgust at the state of affairs. http://wp.me/p2HWOP-9h

The actual deficits the article cites in the past 2 years were over $60m pa although the promoters claim it will be under Â£30m this year here is no evidence of where the extra revenue will come from, particularly with the race sponsors withdrawing.

Even the race promoters seem to be not paying attention to the detail. The published F1 guide for the weekend states, âRefuelling and âbumper to bumperâ racing two things to watch out forâ.

Re-fuelling? Does Michael Schumacher know this? He may change his decision to retire if so.

It appears that the Koreans built the circuit near Mokpo in an attempt to stimulate growth in the region. It hasn’t happened. You can’t really blame Formula 1 for building a circuit and holding a race on a tract of land that was given to them. The sport didn’t choose the location.

It can be done, but not that far away from major cities. Shanghai is a case in point. The F1 track was built on swampland just outside the city that they wanted to develop. 8 years on from the first F1 race there, flats and other buildings are now being built around the circuit (you’ll see some of them at the back of the start-finish straight). It’s said that those flats are now the most expensive in the Shanghai metropolitan area, such is its new-found value.

The circuit itself is actually less than ten kilometres from Mokpo. And although Mokpo is not a major city, I do believe that there are several other projects in the area that the government is using to try and encourage local growth, since most of the wealth in the country is to the north. It’s not just the circuit and the circuit alone that they are relying on, but nothing seems to be working.

I think the local government were sold the idea – “Host an F1 Race and a wealth of economic benefits and international investment will flood in”. They they have been deprived for years of national government investment in favour of other regions and cities and it could have been an “up yours” to the politicians in Seoul – almost a “we’ve got our own billionaire who’ll bring the investment in” mentality.

The fact that F1 people are complaining about lack of and poor quality hotels demonstrates the international investment has not come. The big Hotel chains haven’t built a single Hotel in the area and the local government only had enough money for the infrastructure.

Tilke’s original design had developments on some of the corners – they’ve never been built and we are now nearly half way through the 7 year contract.

Moto may be: Be careful of FOM lawyers with big claims about how much money from inetrnational prestige and from tourism hosting a race will actually bring.

I do hope that the teams get together instead of allowing perfidious Bernie to divide and conquer. As Monisha K says, it is the teams that provide the product and they should be entitled to a much greater share of the revenue they generate. The size and value of the sports/entertainment market has increased exponentially since Bernie first contracted to manage Formula 1, in all other sports the participants have benefited from the increased revenue and gained a much larger slice of the pie, only F1 loses so much revenue to management.

“n Warwickâs opinion, the stewards had been entirely right in their decision on the Spa incident, and he said he was in favour of a âpoints systemâ, in which a driver incurred a certain number of points for a misdemeanour: when these reached a certain total within a certain time, a one-race ban would automatically follow”

I believe I had sent you an email with this idea after Spa..I was hoping that you would write up something..:)

That’s pretty much how a road-going licence in Australia (I’m not sure about the rest of the world) works. You get 12 points on your licence, and various infractions – speeding, drink driving, not wearing a seatbelt, negligent driving, etc. – get points taken off your licence (you get them back after a certain amount of time has elapsed). Once you get to zero points, you lose it. The length of time varies, depending on the infractions you rack up and any previous suspensions, but thee system works pretty well.

Not quite the same in the UK, its the other way round but its the same principle involved, and it clearly works quite well. Everyone starts with zero points and then once you reach 12 you get your licence taken away for x amount of time depending on what you’ve done.

Its like that in Germany as well, only it has 18 points. And here in the Czech Republic the system is much alike with 12 points. I know the Netherlands are talking about introducing a system like that as well, so it would seem to be something that gives a positive impulse to making drivers behave.

Sounds like a “He love me, he loves me not” case with Alonso changing his opinion on Ferrari’s pace almost every other interview!

At Monza for example, we had a car that was good enough to take pole, while then at Singapore, we got a bit lost and to a certain extent, we also suffered at Suzuka, even if there, Felipe showed he was pretty competitive in the race: if we werenât as quick as the Red Bulls, we were at least a match for all the others.â

Danger to himself and a constant danger to others. Some of us just dont have the love for a driver like him. Those who raced him often expressed concerns over his desperate attempt to challenge that margin where one lives or dies. Fans now think of him as a God or something ridiculous like that. Look at the tapes, read accounts of what his opponents thought about him , yet the fan base sees it differently. His driving style was offensive , maybe too offensive and he paid the price

Just look at how he drove and weigh in the comments made of his driving style by fellow competitors. He tempted fate way too often seeking the glory of going where no man would go. Yes the steering column on the Williams failed and he then was headed to his fate. Did he deserve to die like that , Ofcourse not, but it was his decision to ride the edge and he paid the price. As for the humanity bit you couldn’t be more off the mark my friend. I just think Senna was over rated and had he survived my opinion of such may have changed somewhat.

I think @dmw has a point in his COTD, you certainly could get a lot more bang for your buck and slightly quicker results in the WEC than in F1. But a foray into the WEC should still be done with a hint of caution and you should still do all of the necessary preparation as it can be pretty embarrassing if you get it wrong. I don’t think anyone here will be forgetting the horrid Aston Martin AMR-One any time soon!